Home Improvement

Archive for May, 2011

Keeping your home cozy and comfortable, especially during winter is one of the biggest activities in your household. With this, energy costs are one of your largest expenses. Insulating your home depends on its age and condition and how much you can allocate for the project. When you insulate your home, you get to enjoy many benefits such as keeping your home warm when it is cold outside, keeps it cool in summer, saves on your utility bills by minimizing the use of your AC and heating systems and boost its value when you decide to sell it.

The doors and windows are usually the biggest culprit in letting out heat in the house; thus, you should consider double-panes. Otherwise, you have to consider replacing them for newer and energy saving types. You can also opt to put plastic in your windows if you are on a tight budget. Windows need good caulking where they meet outside the house to prevent air leakage and wasting energy. This also goes true for doors. Consider weather stripping at the bottom of doors.

When insulating your attic, you can use fibreglass insulation or cellulose insulation blow into your attic. If you have a crawlspace or basement, make sure that the underneath floor is insulated to prevent cold air, moisture and dirt from coming up through the floorboards. Rolled insulations are usually used and kept in place by using wire supports between the joists. To insulate your walls, you can also use rolled insulation when you replace the interior walls or else blow cellulose insulation by accessing the outside or inside walls.

If you want to put vinyl siding, then you could use a layer of foam insulation or house wrap to add insulation and prevent infiltration of air. You can place foil along the back of you radiator to reflect heat away from the wall and reflect it instead at the back of the room instead of outside the house so the heat will remain in place where you want it. Insulating cavity wall is done by inserting insulating foam-like material between the two walls in your home to retain heat inside more effectively and avoid condensation. It is a simply task that takes only two to three hours for a professional to accomplish. Cavity wall insulation is getting more and more popular because people are beginning to realize the long-term benefits with this type of insulation.

If you have a newer home, then it is likely that you have good insulation. All you have to do is to do annual checks to ensure that caulking is still in good condition. Insulating your home is not difficult and can either be done by a professional or you can do it yourself. If you can afford it, you can hire a professional to do it for you. Whichever way you decide to insulate your home, you can be sure to save money in the long run and enjoy a more comfortable home. Home insulation is an important investment for any household that is looking for ways to cut its heating costs. It does not only make your home more energy-efficient, it is also a greener way of utilizing energy.

Tile installation can make a considerable improvement to the look of your home. Tiles provide your home a clean and beautiful appearance that is easy to maintain. Furthermore, tiles will make your home look timeless.

When installing tiles, you would need materials including a hammer, sponges, tile nippers, cement backer board if applicable, eye protection, ceramic tile, tuber float, tile saw or cutter, grout, buckets, square, notched trowel and tape measure. Below are steps when installing tiles in your home.

1. Measure width and height of the area to be covered with tiles, then divide the area by the tile size. It is necessary to purchase extra tiles because they can break during installation and if you have to replace them in the future, you might find it hard to find the right tiles that match the ones you have.

2. Clean the surface where tiles will be installed and let it dry completely. If you will be installing tiles around electrical outlets, make sure the power is off to the outlet and remove the cover plate.

3. Lay out the tile patterns and maximize the number of full tiles you will need so you will not be spending a lot of time cutting half and partial tiles.

4. Apply the recommended adhesive using a notched trowel to a small area then set the first tile in place by pressing firmly to the adhesive. Make sure it is level and insert spaces at corners then apply the second tile. Work from the first row them move up to the second row and continue until the whole area is covered.

5. Use a tile cutter of saw to cut partial tiles and cut them into shape by using a tile nipper to cut off small tile pieces.

6. Clean off excess adhesive when you finish installing all the tiles and let the adhesive dry overnight or based on manufacturer’s recommendations.

7. After the adhesive has dried, remove spacers and mix grout according to the directions of the manufacturer. Apply grout using a rubber float and push down into the cracks between the tiles. Wipe away excess grout by passing the float over the tiles.

8. When the grout has dried, wipe away any remaining haze by using a damp sponge and clean water.

Installing tiles in your home is pretty straightforward as long as you have all the materials you will need and if you follow closely the manufacturer’s directions. Tile installation can be done by a professional or you can do it yourself. If you think that it would be more effective if a professional will do the job and you have the budget, then you can hire a contractor instead. Nevertheless, if you have enough skills and determination to do it on your own, you can opt to install tiles by yourself and one helper perhaps. Keep in mind that installing tiles does not only make your home more beautiful but also boosts the value of your home if you decide to sell it later on.

The basement in general has to be modified to make it livable and makes it a great option for every homeowner. Finishing your basement does not require expensive additions since the space is there already. For people in warm climates, a basement will provide cool relief from the heat and those in cold climates allow residents to do activities in the basement and escape the cold.

The most important thing to consider is what you are going to do with your basement. You could turn it into a family room, office, movie theater, recreation room for entertainment, bathroom, extra bedroom, wine cellar, exercise or sports area, storage, bar, second kitchen; kids’ play area, music room or laundry room. Because basements tend to be cold, you could probably begin by installing air conditioning and heating units. If the basement is damp, you have to install dehumidifiers to eliminate moisture or add a secondary source of heat to it if the temperature is hard to maintain.

It is important to choose the right kind of lumber for the wall if you are going to seal the basement with wood. Drapes and carpets are not good choices because they have the tendency to absorb moisture. It is necessary that before you start any project, you have to fix problems that could lead to your basement turning dank since this could result in mold growth on walls. Due to absence of natural light, it would be best for your basement to be painted with white. The best ways to enhance the unique appearance and comfort of the basement is by using sealed wood or tiles.

To hide or make beams and pipes disappear, try painting them the same color as the ceiling and elongate stubby windows by hanging curtains outside the frame and include more fabric than fits the windows so when closed, it will give an appearance of bigger windows. If you live north and want to use the area during winter, you have to install a kind of heating device like a fireplace or zonal heating.

So that you will not feel like you are underground, you can use bright colors and a lot of lighting in the basement. Put white woodwork and accent with light colors like tan or pale blue or bright shades such as golden yellow and electrical green. Do not worry about the basement match the rest of the interiors of your home. If you have low ceiling, integrate lamps and recessed lighting. You can also use mirrors to open space and allow light to bounce around the room. You can also put frosted glass doors between rooms for more privacy but allows light to spill in. Finishing a pre-built basement is cheaper than an external home renovation. You can do it yourself depending on your skills and budget or else hire a company to do the job. Whatever your choice is, you will find out that the more you check out several basement ideas, the more worthwhile the project will be. It is a good investment that adds value to your home.

Though most homes have gutters and downpipes to collect rainwater and route it away from the building, in extremely heavy rainfall areas it is often dispensed with, having difficulty carrying the large volumes of rainwater deposited in short periods of time.

For homes with guttering and downpipes an annual inspection should be performed as a minimum, to ensure the guttering and downpipes are free of obstructions and in serviceable order.

Obstructions during periods of heavy rainfall can see household guttering retaining water rather than channeling it away, resulting in rain water running inside the house, damaging plaster walls, or become a fire hazard in summer time in bushfire prone areas.

Once comprising individual galvanised iron profiles manufactured to set lengths, todays gutter and downpipes are made from either continuous length Zincalume steel, Colorbond aluminium, or plastic, with the latter more prone to attack by UV rays than the first two.

For guttering to be effective and prevent “ponding” a minimum gutter fall of 1 in 500 is recommended, with the depth and width of the channeling and profile suitable dictated by local rainfall conditions.

For standard family homeowners most building supply centres carry stock of pre-cut aluminium guttering lengths in a range of standard profiles for replacing small sections of a houses guttering, or for small extension projects, while for entire house replacement of guttering in Brisbane the entire process is generally performed onsite.

Specialist gutter repair companies are able to remove and replace a home’s gutters and downpipes in less than a day, a truck onsite rolling out continuous guttering lengths of your desired profile, with one piece generally only required for each continuous, vertical surface.

In areas of heavy rainfall, or where groundwater running towards the footings of a house result in excessive amounts of water, the construction of either a gutter channel or an agricultural (agi) drain, often called a soakage drain, will help prevent excessive water from damaging your foundations, and possibly leaching through to interior walls.

Ideally a drain will be about 200mm wide and 600mm to 900mm deep, with a layer of 20mm screened gravel covering to about 100mm below the ground surface. A layer of shade cloth or similar on top of the stone will help prevent soil seeping through the stone, with dirt being used to complete the backfill.

If you attempt to fix a gutter by yourself be sure to work safely. It can be very dangerous working off ladders without using proper scaffolding or a safety harness.

Building a house and making it your home is one of the biggest goals of many families. It is a dream to be the first person to live in the space and to be able to make each decision about the design your own. In designing your home it is easy to overlook things like the placement of light switches or plugs. In the end however it will matter when running the vacuum, plugging in nightlights, running Christmas lights. It is so important to make each element count. That includes the placement of windows and doors.

Windows and doors have to be placed correctly for your home design to flow naturally. It is important to take their placement into consideration in each room. Think about how the furniture will be placed before you establish where the entry door will be. The same thing should be taken into consideration with windows with the size and shape. I always have disliked the windows in our bedroom because they are placed in such a way that our bed has to stay on one wall. If we move the bed anywhere else it would be placed underneath a window and that does not work for our family.

It is also important in thinking about the air flow in your home. Windows and doors let the air circulate through your home. That is one thing I really like about our homes design. We have two door walls, one in the kitchen and one in the living room. We also have French doors directly across from the door wall in the living room. I hardly ever run the air in the summer because the breeze flows through the house. We have a ceiling fan that also helps keep the air moving to create an environment without stale air.

A room was added within the original space of our home before we moved in. This created a very unbalanced room. We use this as a sitting area. The problem is that the windows are now not centered on the wall. The addition wall actually butts directly up to the one of the windows. It is odd for many reasons. The window treatments have to be those in which are put directly in the window casing. It is also weird for air to flow because it comes in that window and meets with a wall. It really has no balance at all. If I were there when they were designing this added room I would have suggested that they further bring the wall into our sitting area and make the room addition larger and include two windows instead of just the one.

It is personal preference when design your dream home. The placement of windows and doors is one in which great thought and common sense should be brought in. Spare no detail. If you spare any detail, small or large, it will end up being the one thing that continues to plague you after you are settling into your new home. My girlfriend did not put too much thought into outlets and now will forever be plagued with a light switch that should be in the mud room before you enter the home but that lives in the kitchen. You need to open the door from the mud room to the kitchen before you can flip a light on to take off your shoes. It happens to all of us.